Movie Marathon: The Fox and the Hound, 1981

The Fox and the Hound marked the beginning of the transition from the generation of the "Nine Old Men" to a new generation of directors and animators, including John Lasseter, Glen Keane, and Tim Burton. The film actually began production in 1977 and became the catalyst for a mass exodus from the studio. After four years in production, the film was finally finished by a total of 180 people, including 24 animators.The "Nine Old Men" worked on initial animation development, with Wolfgang Reitherman heading the film as producer; Larry Clemmons took the helm of the story team. Animators Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, and Cliff Nordberg developed early character concepts, and the newer generation came in later to finalize animation and complete production. 

However, the new team clashed with Reitherman's ideas for design and layout, leading to Don Bluth's official break-away. Bluth declared Disney's films "stale," taking eleven others with him to create a new studio. The sudden animator decrease delayed the film, postponing the original date as new animators were hired to replace those lost. In a very real sense, this did become the Dark Age for Disney as much of its great talent left the studio, and the creatives clashed with contrasting ideas. There was evident box office decline, story quality decline, and popularity decline.

These films might not have been groundbreaking in the day but they're still great films, with classic value for a lot of Disney fans. Again, Disney's neglect of this love is frustrating: only The Fox and the Hound's sequel is on Netflix (and the point of that, Disney? Really, Disney?).

Stay tuned for The Black Cauldron, and check out the livetweet of the Disney Dark Age movie marathon.